Sub 1:30 Half Marathon - 2013

Welcome to the 2013 sub 90 minute half marathon thread...again! If your goal is 1:20-1:30 (or eventually to break the 1:30 mark), join us as we discuss our races and training. Feel free to post your race name, date and location, and if you wish, I will post it along with your results in the list below.

Just pasting my response from the old forum on here, not sure who's using which in this transition phase!

skippy - good luck for the half!

philly - its about 85 here, but we are going into Autumn so it'll start cooling down soon! I love autumn running, winter isnt as great but at least heat isnt a problem. We dont have snow either. Love the shoes! I hope you get some sleep, but I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who resorts to benadryl sometimes!

ran - I had ITB years ago, vaguely remember writhing in pain having it massaged every day, and just hobbling through. Probably did some pool running as well, but that isnt always less painful, especially if its giving you knee pain as well.

brent - your poor daughter! And her poor parents, it must have been a little bit traumatic. Glad she's ok.

me - got my new shoes! Boy did my feet and legs feel better. Did 4.6mi. My slow and sluggish (multiple factors contributing to fatigue right now) pace is around 7:38min/mi now, so looking forward to when everything comes right and my body decides to play nice. Its an improvement on 8:18's two months back anyway.

I am already liking the new forums over the last one. They even brought the sigs back.

I have decided to try to run every other day and bike on the other days in the mornings with stretching and using the foam roller afterwards. Then at night do a strength training routine every other night like leg lifts, squats, one legged squats, clams and lunges. If this doesn't work out then back to the PT. I think I got impatient and tried to run one to many days in a row.

RAN - hopefully your injury heals up soon enough. Best of luck with your regime to help you out.

pk - haha, yeah it wasn't too bad. I wasn't too upset by it, it is one of those things where crap happens and just have to roll with the punches. Sounds like you had a relaxing day.

jeszey - thanks! Awesome job on new "slow/sluggish" pace of 7:38/mi, haha. Do any of your non-runner friends ever ask how fast you normally run a mile and you answer with like 8 min/mi? I always do that, and they are always astonished, but my reaction is always, it's not that fast actually.

dotothe2nd - good luck this weekend!

5krunning5k - welcome! What is your PR if you don't mind my asking? I am just wondering since you are shooting for sub 85.

crazyjustin - nice on the 5 mile tempo. Glad to hear you are feeling like the you of old.

brent - oh no! Glad she is okay.

DJW - hell of a job on that tempo. You killed it. What do you normally do for the week of a race?

me - left work early so I was there when the put the new water heater in. Once they left, went on an easy 6 miler @ 7:40/mi. Came back and had a nice hot shower. Was glorious, haha. Bolting work early today as well to head down to DC. Hopefully, I can hit sub 100 or sub 95. Not quite at sub 90 but who knows. Crazier stuff has happened.

Thanks Piwi, Justin & Skippy! Justin, it's supposed to be a good race, this is my first time running it (and only my 2nd half), it's flat and fast. I think there's only about 15 ft of elevation change, and it's in the middle of the course, you come off the last "hill" to a downward slope towards the finish. My half next month is even better, absolutely flat and straight out and back course, should be able to shave a lil bit of time off whatever I run this weekend.

Run- You may even want to be more conservative than that. Biking can aggravate ITBS just as much as running. But definitely strengthen glutes, quads, adductors, abductors, hips, etc.

Jes- glad the new shoes are better for you. I'm not looking forward to the upcoming heat. Instead of running right after work around 4:30pm, I'll either have to do 4:30AM runs or or 7-8pm runs

PK- sorry the kinvaras weren't working for you, but at least your son go an extra pair. As far as two colors at once... I'll pass.

djw- thanks. same to you for next week. looks like you're shaping up for a big race!

d- good luck!

justin- nice run, welcome back to old justin!

5k- welcome! sub 1:25, wow fast

skipppy- good luck this weekend to you too! hope you surprise yourself!

me- did 5 easy yesterday at 8:02/mi. no running today, i fly out right after work and get in to nyc at 11:30pm. will run an easy 3 or so on saturday through central park and take a look at miles 3 and 5, where they say the biggest hills are. weather seems to be getting worse. now looking at around 31/32 degrees at the start of the race. instead of sunny, it's going to be partly cloudy. hope i can deal with the cold. it's been a while since i've been back home and farther north. either way, i WILL PR!!!! (i guess it's kind of easy to when it's your first half marathon..)

dtothe2nd - how do you get flatter than 15 feet of elevation change? Good job at finding those, and good luck on the races.

piwi - thanks for the link to this thread!

DJW - I just realized you did West Liberty, OH which is only like 30 minutes from me. If that is around where you live, maybe when the weather is in the 50's we could meet up so I could do a tempo while you do an easy run. I live in North Columbus, close to Worthington.

me - my itchy throat turned into a cold today, runny nose, coughing which has subsided a little now, and I called off work (but am salary so I still get paid, yay). I will be resting today with water, mucinex, airborne, orange juice, food and kleenex. Might miss pool tournament tomorrow, but not gonna miss 10k sunday morning.

DJW - you're looking in good shape, time to taper and let yourself rebound.

Me: Missed a run yesterday no real reason, just busy with things, look to get some quality miles in this weekend. I'm glad they put sig lines functionality back in the forums - It really helps to put perspective around the paces people are running with their race speed.

Just making the transition and leaving last PK post there until all sub-90ers show up here

Let's start by wishing the best race conditions (weather, health, traffic, etc) for this weekend runners: Philly, Skippy and D2d2nd.

RAN: Prompt recovery, man.

PK and Jez: Please send some heat this way... We are at -4C and waiting for snow next week.

Justin: It was pretty positive what I read about your medical report, hopefully they can figure out and keep you balanced in the long term.

DJW: That tempo is awesome... and thanks for opening the thread again.

Me: Skipping some runs this week due to workload. I did 3x1600 on Monday @6:40, total 10K. On Wednesday 4 mile tempo@6:50, total 10K. Friday: 7 miles easy@7:42. I want to put a LR this weekend and a recovery as well.

I plan to run a 10K next week, I'm not sure of what pace I should hit as I'm struggling in my tempo @6:50mm. I might open @7mm and review after 7K

Jaime - I am in the same boat as you this Sunday, but I plan on running my first mile at 6:40 and after that keeping heart rate around 165-170. My long run wednesday was with HR at 157-160 for 90 minutes. I am running similar paces as you, though I did 6x800@6:40 pace and a 4.5 mile tempo @ 6:40 pace recently. HR sat around 165 when I did those paces.

Dtothe2nd - Sorry I may have missed your race. It's logged now. I googled the Shamrock HM this Sunday and got several results. Where is this one?

5kr5k - welcome to the thread.

Kiwi - thanks, I hope to fill the signature with some shiny ones too. And yeah it's cool to see improvements in speed work and tempo. I hope it continues.

skip - I guess I don't have a normal, because this will be my 2nd competetive half. My training for this one was 60 mpw, and this week will be 50, and next week will be 40 including the race. We'll see how that goes.

Philly - yeah that may be a little weather shock for you if you're used to 85 degrees. Hopefully it won't affect you. You've been working hard and I think it will pay off regardless.

Justin - good to see Crazy J!

Joe - I live up north of you some about 30 minutes west of Cleveland. If I'm ever down that way though, I would be glad to meet up with you for a run!

Tue - Probably the hardest session I have ever done, ran it at around 5k pace.Sat - A tempo session, splits weren't even because of the hilly nature of the route, legs felt a bit tired, probably because of Tuesdays session, felt like half marathon effort.

4,27 miles this morning. @ GA pace, A slight tightness in the knee but overall felt good. I did stretches, foam rolling and iced knee afterwards. I will do leg strength exercises with more stretching tonight.

5k- nice week. I was born in the UK and have been to Blackpool pre 1975!Sounds like a good course. As Djw says that 10k tempo is the way to go. It predicted my last half very accurately.

I smashed through the 40 mile barrier with 45 after todays "longrun" of 9 miles. I will hold here for another week and then try and introduce a proper 13 mile longrun. I also want to start the 10k tempo soon too. I have 6 weeks to raceday so got alot to cram in.

Heading out on a 12 miler today and it got me thinking. When I first started getting my mileage up last year I used to take an energy gel after about 6 miles. Now I can manage to do the whole run without one.

Is there any logic in training without relying on energy gels, then when it comes close to race week taking energy gels? I was wondering if it will give me more energy given that my body hasn't become accustomed to it?

Redtel - I have noticed the same thing for me, but figured it was just that our bodies get more efficient as we progress more ... but dkg knows better than me it seems.

Me - did a 10k race today, small event with 20 people, an out and back. I wish I had a GPS watch, but I just have a basic watch with HR and lap times. The race seemed a little short and the only thing I could use for splits was the halfway point and the mile markers on the bike path that it was ran on. My miles seemed to be right at 6:40 when looking at those and my watch, but I hit the turnaround point at 20:00 on the dot. Came back in 19:18 for a final time of 39:18. I really want to claim this as my 10k time, but with my miles being right around 6:40 I'd say 5.9 miles. Either way, right on pace with what I had hoped for. Glad the half marathon won't be on a 32 degree day, my feet were cold.

Due to my training (coming down from marathon and the dead legs eliminating speed work) and the course set up, I planned to go out concservatively and then push it on the backend. I started at the back of my correl and this led to a really slow first mile (6:50ish, I think). I may over-corrected a bit on mile 2, but overall my first 5k was a little slower than I had wanted. The 2nd one was more of the same, as the pack started to stretch out. Around the midway point was the "hill" of the course. I know it well, so I was aggrassive up it and after that the line of runners had turned into small packs soI started to pick them off. At this time, according to the speed trap still set up I was going 12 mph. I felt strong and continued to work my way up. I hit the 10 mile mark a little under 65, so right on pace for 1:25. I continued to work hard and had a last mile sub-6 to finish up in the lower 1:24s.

All in all, I am happy. Probably left a little time on the course by going out too slow, but not really sure if the pack would have allowed me to hit the pace I wanted right out.

One of my feet feels a little off today, so I am taking today off. Assuming it is nothing, I will have a reverse-taper week and then start building up mileage. I have a couple other races set up in the next monthish and hope to add one or two more. Then eventually I want to start the Pfitz 18/70 plan for a fall marathon.

Joe - if you know anyone else at the race, you can check with them to see if they had a gps on. Or if you are super curious you can measure it later. PR or not - solid run.

DJW - the trap was after the hill a bit. Not sure if the police were just lazy in not removing it or had a sense of humor. It is a PR, one of the perks of doing a race you don't really do - pretty sure my previous half PR would have been a split from a full.

Hey all, only time for a quick post. At the airport now. Will post a full race report later. It was COLD today! Race start temp was 30 degrees and only 32 at the finish. Finished my first half marathon in 1:32:22. Very happy with that time since my initial goal was sub 1:35.

Joe- great job looks like you need to go out and refresh your 5k pr ! It sucks when courses are wrong after all the effort we put into training.

LFP- 1.24 is fast, great job. Any pics, more details, where did you come etc.

Philly- awesome you must be stoked. Next up 1.30 for you.

Justin- great tempo and solid week.

DJW- Yes I think 4 min per km pace to start off with for my 1st 10k tempo back.

Rest day for me. Im a gel guy definitely one at half way in a half. In training I will take one at half way in my 12+ mile runs to practice and to keep me good till the end. It is individual and we all have different requirements. If I was to run a full I would be looking at one every half hour or so.

lfp - Nice race and strong finish! When weather warms up I am putting that path where it was in the middle of my long bike route so I can measure, I am definitely curious. I didn't know anyone there, so I will have to wait to check.

philly - Looking forward to race report and definitely a PR!!!!

DJW - might be at least another week before the weather breaks. That groundhog is fired.

Piwi - Thanks! Yeh, it does, but at least it was close ... what sucked was I never noticed there was a bigger run downtown today that was a 5k and 10k that would have probably been a bigger event. Heard a commercial for it on my way home, lol.

justin - good to see things are starting to get back to normal for you.

me - very unproductive running week, and nothing over the weekend. Feeling better now though and looking forward to a run this afternoon. Have an off road 10k this weekend which I'm looking forward to - its a hard course apparently, and I have barely run 10k on the road but I'm just doing it for fun and for a training run.

1:28:10 at the Shamrock Half this morning! I'm a very happy camper. My overall goal was sub-1:30, but after my 20k, I decided to shoot for a 6:45 pace, I figured I'd assess my condition at mile 7 and adjust if needed, felt good so I kept it going, ended up with a 6:44 average pace.

Philly : awesome job, looking forward to hearing more about your race. I did catch some of the coverage of nyc half on tv this am. Forgot to Dvr it :-(

Justin : nice tempo!

Joe: nice 10k. I'd take count it as a Pr :-)

Regarding the topic of gels, my feeling is that if your going to use em in the race, you should use em in training at least often enough to make sure your stomach will agree with them. It's probably true that you can train your body to become more efficient at burning fat as well as glycogen by training on an empty stomach, occasionally but I wonder if you might be sacrificing some quality from the workout by simulating a bonk condition. I.e. would you get more net benefit by fueling and going a little faster?. I generally don't bother with a gu for a HM personally.

For me: 6m yesterday @7:30 pace, 12 today at 8:00 pace. Today's run was a little too soon after a large lunch, stomach bothered me whenever I tried to pick up the pace. Who needs gels when you just ate a massive hoagie?